


Stories of the Second Self: Everything in a Name

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [151]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22709410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: Yet another massive smoky manifestation was summoned just like the wispy creature that loomed over Norwood. Only this time the conjurers made the grave mistake of repeating their feat in Silverton, the unchallenged domain of Papa Henry Delane. Donning his talismans of power and other artifacts anchoring souls to his servitude, Delane Henry then adorns his Witch King costume to personally hit the streets. Following lingering traces of magic, Delane comes across a collection of glass spheres in a store's backroom. On those orbs are carved many names, including his own.
Series: Alter Idem [151]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: Everything in a Name

Weeks after The Night of the Apparition over Norwood, as word on the street had it dubbed, another loomed over Silverton, Cincinnati. That was the last straw for Papa Delane Henry. The real estate mogul and Bokor of Silverton. No one dared challenge his place, not even the National Guard during the federal occupation. Favors were owed to Delane, but he would settle this himself.

After sundown, Delane started to prepare. He rubbed a fragrant lotion into his gold-capped dreadlocks to clean them. Next, Delane gathered his most critical Ouangas, the talismans containing those souls that granted Delane the most additional power. Among those were rings, neck chains, and a few jars of sand with tattered cloth tied around their lids with either hair or the personal item once belonging to that particular soul. After, his fly girls brought his robes, steel gauntlets, and heavy iron crown out into the main hall.

Looking very much like the costume for the Witch King of Angmar as portrayed in the movie was no accident. Delane adored the trilogy, so much so that the wall art in his hall was all Tolkien themed, in contrast with noir furniture and expensive chandeliers hung from a ceiling painted to look at close to a starry night as possible with no semblance of light pollution.

Delane put the robes over his tan suit and steel-plated boots over his Berluti Alessandro Demesure shoes, then he waited for the small angelic girl and the voluptuous Cernnunos Fae woman put his gauntlets on, before they next raised the crown of cruelly sharp iron spires over his hooded head.

"And now, ladies," Delane said to his fly girls. "The last touches."

The angel brought his sheathed long sword and the Fae hefted up the handle of the morning star, but Delane didn't take hold of the latter. One of his indentured souls took custody of the massive weapon, though none saw the phantasmal hands or the rest of the vaporous entity. Two more invisibly left Delane's presence to fetch his preferred ballistic plates as protection from gunfire.

Not that Delane was as at much risk from it as others in the city, for he was already dead. However, even a vampire's knee could be blown out by a well-placed shot and it would take a few feedings to regenerate.

The robs themselves also included added protection of the less material variety. Within the fibers of the cinematic-inspired Nazgul robes Delane wove the souls of thirteen devout followers; people who willingly bound their eternal spirits to Papa Delane Henry, and so made the robes tougher only when around the Silverton Bokor himself.

Delane got the idea from another movie about thirteen trapped ghosts, and modified the theme to suit his needs and cosplay inspiration. Everything-- and everyone set, Delane strode down the end of his grand hall to the door. There, his werewolf body guard stood ready to open the door.

"Good evenin' Papa Henry," the Arkansan werewolf in red plaid shirt and work jeans greeted Delane. "Hope it all goes well."

"Thank you, Jim," Delane replied with his usual bright chipper tone, "I appreciate that."

Normally, Jim or others would escort Delane when he ventured out on business or certain social occasions. Though, tonight they'd need alibis and insufficient information for use in testimony.

Even Delane's driver wouldn't be involved, nor did Delane take any of his cars to drive himself. The last time Delane ventured out on foot to handle 'matters' was back in Columbus, Ohio and many paid a steep price for his having to be involved.

Despite the voluminous robes and all the rest, Delane had no difficulty climbing up the ladder to the gritty bare-cement-walled storeroom with one stained incandescent bulb giving off a urine yellow light. From there, Delane approached another door. With a knuckle of his steel-plated index finger he knocked once and dragged the point of contact down the middle of the door a practiced length. The door opened of its own accord, and Delane passed through to step outside.

He exited into the back lot of his hotel where stood, leaned, or sat several of his employees who all appeared disinterested as per expectation. Delane swept two fingers over his covered face to weave an illusion over himself. Identical to the power every Fae could innately cast, Delane spent hard months mastering it himself, but rarely employed it lest rivals learn that he knew how.

Fae also could see through illusions, though Delane suspected few would be out at this hour and virtually none had the bad sense to remark on seeing Silverton's own Witch King hitting the bricks on foot.

In the ether of the night air, Delane could still feel the residual power of the second apparition. It was already faint enough that most magic practitioners to miss, but Delane was no ordinary artisan of the supernatural craft.

Almost as if he could see and smell a vapor, Delane unerringly followed the hint of arcane whiffs down several streets. It led him to an unassuming store lot on the opposite corner from Friends of Fantastic Figures. The main business resided within a collapsed retail outlet and catered to the truly new of new age consumers, and large stylishly craft sign: Knocknasheega.

In the days before Alter Idem, the Second Self, many stores would be open late or even twenty-four hours. Not so, now that the night held real monsters to be feared.

Pretty much every vampire in Silverton knew better than to Open Feed, and after four years the werewolf street packs largely abided by Delane's informal decree with few foolhardy exceptions. Though, word on the street persisted about trolls and other creatures that once were ordinary animals.

Delane advanced to the front doors to read the posted hours of business. Then, he examined the seams of the doors, before nodding himself.

On the tips of the index and middle fingers of his armored gauntlets reached out long sharp blades, though Delane didn't use them to attempt forcing the door open or claw at any lock. Rather, he placed those two finger tips at the seam and whispered.

His slow-drawn voice was liken to the deathly breeze of autumn at dusk, as he spoke in Creole, "It is my will that the way open before me, as the night inevitably comes with none to hinder."

The doors then opened as they would during business hours. The inner doors likewise opened when Delane drew close enough for the motion sensor to pick him up. Heedless of internal security cameras that doubtlessly recorded, Delane continued on to the back doors leading to the stockroom. Turning one way and then another, Delane saw nothing out of place, and then he turned his attention to the ceiling.

"Right spot, wrong floor," Delane's chilling wind whisper drifted out.

Delane then sought out an employee access stairs leading to the upper floor. Passing a manager's office and storerooms full of fixtures, Delane traced his way back to the same space as he stood below. The door wasn't even locked.

Inside, Delane spied a conference room cleared of its usual furniture. Instead, the many tables and counters all hosted sconces for candles burning with flickers from Delane's entrance. The conference table had been covered with an old off-white cloth, and on it were many rings hoisting up glass spheres. All were clear save one in the middle.

Curious, Delane picked up a glass sphere at the periphery of the collection. On it was etched a name Delane didn't recognize. Putting the crystal ball back, Delane selected another. This bore the name that Delane did know; Ellsa Laqouis, Delane's top enforced and whom he personally sponsored into a vampire.

Delane checked others to find the names of vampires, werewolves, and a few humans he knew, as well as one angel that Delane hadn't personally met, but read about in the news regarding the vigilante and cop killings before the federal occupation. At last, Delane checked the one black glass ball in the middle and found yet another name staring back at him: Papa Delane Henry.

Holding it up for more thoughtful inspection, Delane mustered up his deathly breeze whisper, "You have composed the worst hit list possible, for which you will pay dearly. Names have power, and etching my name here grants me power over you."

As a vampire, Delane's strength was tenfold of what it was when he was last human, but insufficient to crush the perfectly spherical glass clutched in steel enshrouded fingers. The black crystal ball nonetheless shattered, for Delane exerted a greater source of power tapped from the ball itself.

Absorbing the remaining arcane essence, Delane grew a sense of the practitioners who labored over the engraving into these spheres. Every one of them, Delane decided that moment, owed him the highest price that they each could pay but once.


End file.
